Call for entries: Social Cause and Love Song competitions

The winner in each promotion will receive prizes from Audeze, PreSonus, Sweetwater, Merch Cat and Shubb capos. The second runners-up will walk away with 1 000 play credits and promotion on Radio Airplay, which is known for generating internet and social media buzz. 

“This is our fifth special promotion of the year, and we plan to run two more before we stop taking entries in early January 2021,” ISC marketing director Shane Whalen told Music In Africa. 

“We've run the Love Songs and Social Cause promotion for several years. Love songs in some shape or form represent a large majority of songs written, and we added the Social Cause component a few years back to shed some light to art inspired by causes. We encouraged African artists to continue to participate.”

Previous winners form Africa include Isabel Novella (Mozambique) and Ya Kid K & We 3 Kings (Nigeria) as well as The Parlotones, Black Handed Kites, Blaze Blackheart and Pedro Barbosa from South Africa. 

Eligibility

Participants of any age can submit entries in the following categories:

• Adult Album Alternative (AAA)
• Adult Contemporary (AC)
• Americana
• Blues
• Children’s Music
• Christian
• Comedy/Novelty
• Country
• Electronic Dance Music (EDM)
• Folk/Singer-songwriter
• Instrumental
• Jazz
• Latin Music
• Lyrics Only
• Music Video
• Performance
• Pop/Top 40
• R&B/Hip Hop
• Rock
• Teen
• Unpublished
• Unsigned Only
• World Music

Entrants may submit to both promotions.

The ISC accepts the following:

• New original music. 
• Old original music.
• Music that has previously been submitted in the ISC competition.
• A demo that is yet to be commercially released. 
• A previously recorded live performance with a full band.
• A video performance recorded with a phone.

The jury will award winners based on:

• Creativity.
• Originality.
• Lyrics (excludes songs that do not have lyrics).
• Melody.
• Arrangement.
• Overall likeability.
• Production/recording quality.
• Vocal ability.

How to apply 

To apply, applicants should create an account here before accessing the online application forms here.

Once logged in, entrants should:

• Click on ‘add song’.
• Select the stream my music/video option and input the streaming link from Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Entrants can also share the link from file-sharing services like WeTransfer, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.

The application deadline is 25 November 2020.

For more information, send an email to info@songwritingcompetition.com.